A Special Forces Commander’s Take On Bergdahl Recovery Ops In 2009

On Wednesday, Jan. 13, the Serial team announced that they would be moving the podcast to a biweekly schedule, meaning that the next episode won’t be released on Jan 21.

Because we’ve historically dedicated each Task & Purpose Radio episode to an entire Serial episode, we’re also shifting course.

For episode five, “The View From The Ground,” Nate Bethea reached out and spoke with Mike Waltz, a former Special Forces commander who led seven Green Beret teams and one Navy SEAL team during recovery operations in Afghanistan looking for Bergdahl. Previously Waltz worked as a policy advisor in the White House and Pentagon and is the author of the book, “Warrior Diplomat: A Green Beret's Battles from Washington to Afghanistan.”

Waltz is also featured in episode two of Serial, in which he details walking into a booby-trapped compound that his team only escaped by luck. It became apparent to Waltz and his team that they were being baited with misinformation.

In speaking with Bethea, Waltz offers some valuable insight into the conditions on the ground after the DUSTWUN was called and just how dangerous the situation became chasing misinformation and bad intelligence.

GREENBELT, Md. (Reuters) - A U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant accused of amassing a cache of weapons and plotting to attack Democratic politicians and journalists was ordered held for two weeks on Thursday while federal prosecutors consider charging him with more crimes.

Attorneys for the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America have filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump asking the court to recognize the citizenship of an Alabama woman who left the U.S. to join ISIS and allow she and her young son to return to the United States.

U.S. soldiers surveil the area during a combined joint patrol in Manbij, Syria, November 1, 2018. Picture taken November 1, 2018. (U.S. Army/Zoe Garbarino/Handout via Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will leave "a small peacekeeping group" of 200 American troops in Syria for a period of time after a U.S. pullout, the White House said on Thursday, as President Donald Trump pulled back from a complete withdrawal.

With a legal fight challenge mounting from state governments over the Trump administration's use of a national emergency to construct at the U.S.-Mexico border, the president has kicked his push for the barrier into high gear.

On Wednesday, President Trump tweeted a time-lapse video of wall construction in New Mexico; the next day, he proclaimed that "THE WALL IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION RIGHT NOW"

But there's a big problem: The footage, which was filmed more than five months ago on Sep. 18, 2018, isn't really new wall construction at all, and certainly not part of the ongoing construction of "the wall" that Trump has been haggling with Congress over.

A group comprised of former U.S. military veterans and security contractors who were detained in Haiti on weapons charges has been brought back to the United States and arrested upon landing, The Miami-Herald reported.

The men — five Americans, two Serbs, and one Haitian — were stopped at a Port-au-Prince police checkpoint on Sunday while riding in two vehicles without license plates, according to police. When questioned, the heavily-armed men allegedly told police they were on a "government mission" before being taken into custody.